the spectators outside the building caught it up, and re-echoed the strain. When the shrill trumpet which followed the declaration of the opening of the building by the Duke of Cambridge, the multitude forsook the glass cases, jumped off the pianofortes, and left off wiping their feet on the damask furniture for the pleasure of spreading through the building.
We who remember the old building and the glorious view down the nave, felt a sad sense of disappointment on Thursday, at the crowded confusion of the trophies in the English department thereof, which, as far as we can see, have been taken possession of by a set of tradesmen merely to advertise their goods. The jumbled condition of these trophies, and the hideous nature of them, are a disgrace to those who had the laying-out and management of spaces given to exhibitors. In 1851, every trophy was properly placed by Owen Jones. He was answerable for the propriety of the decorations, saw that they were placed in happy juxtaposition, and rigorously forbade overcrowding. Now, every man seems to have shot his show case where he listed, and the consequence is, that a more hideous jumble than is here witnessed never before was seen. Regent Street toy-sellers and furriers have emptied their shops of their ordinary goods, and piled them upon gigantic dumb-waiters, which are dignified with the name of trophies; the mast of a light-ship jostles Elkington's silver work, and the great equatorial telescope nearly pokes out the eye of a bronze statue. It will be remembered that in the building of 1851 the rarest articles of manufacture and of art were alone exhibited; in the nave of 1862 only the rubbish is collected, with a few exceptions. Thank Heaven, many of them are to be banished! To find out the real merit of the Exhibition, and to measure the growth of English industry and art with that of the foreigner, since the last Exhibition, we must penetrate into the various Courts, and here the rival growth of the mind universal is obvious enough, and the value of the position we hold with respect to our neighbours is quite unmistakeable.
In succeeding papers we shall endeavour to pick out the plums in this huge pudding, and enjoy them at our leisure with the reader.
RUSSIAN POPULAR TALES.
Translated from the Russian.
THE STORY OF YVASHKA WITH THE BEAR'S EAR.
The tale of "Yvashka with the Bear's Ear," though not so popular in Russia as that of "Emelian the Fool," is yet a great favourite. Its main interest depends not so much on him of the bear's ear, or even his comrade Usünia, who angles for trout with his moustaches, as on Baba Yagá. This personage is the grand mythological demon of the Russians, and frequently makes her appearance in their popular tales; but perhaps in none plays so remarkable a part as in the story of Yvashka. A little information with respect to her will perhaps not be unacceptable to the reader before entering upon the story. She is said to be a huge female, who goes driving about the steppes in a mortar, which she forces onward by pounding lustily with a pestle, though, of course, being in the mortar, she cannot wield the pestle without hurting herself. As she hurries along, she draws with her tongue—which is, at least, three yards long—a mark upon the dust, and with it seizes every living thing coming within her reach, which she swallows for the gratification of her ever-raging appetite. She has several young and handsome daughters, whom she keeps in a deep well beneath her izbushka, or cabin, which has neither door nor window, and stands upon the wildest part of the steppe, upon hen's feet, and is continually turning round. Whenever Baba Yagá meets a person, she is in the habit of screaming out:
I ne'er saw "Oho! Oho!
I ne'er saw Russian wight till now;
But now the flesh of a Russian wight
I smell with nose and see with sight."
Such is the Russian tradition about Baba Yagá, unlike, in every respect, any of the goblins and mythological monsters of western Europe, except, perhaps, in her cry, which puts one in mind of the exclamation of the giant in the English nursery tale of "Jack the Giant-Killer:"
I smell thFi, fee, fo, fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
In the demon lore of the Turks, however, there a ghostly being with which she seems to have considerable affinity. This goblin is called Kara Conjulos. The Kara Conjulos is a female, and lives at the bottom of a well, in a certain part of Constantinople, from which she emerges every night, and drives about the city in a cart drawn by two buffaloes. She is much in the habit of stopping at caravansaries, going into the stables and breeding a confusion and a panic amongst the horses. She has several daughters, who occasionally accompany her on her expeditions, and assist her in the commission of her pranks. A certain learned Efendy, in a most curious Turkish book which he wrote about Constantinople, has a great deal to say concerning this goblin and her daughters, and, amongst other things, gives an account of a very bad night which he passed in a caravansary at some little distance from the city owing to the intrusion of the Kara Conjulos and her bevy. Now for the story of Yvashka!
In a certain kingdom, in a certain government, there lived a mujik, whose wife bore him a son who had the ear of a bear, on which account he was called Yvashka with the Bear's Ear. Now when Yvashka with the Bear's Ear was beginning to attain his full growth he used to go about the streets and play with the children; but he played so roughly that if he seized a child by the hand he was sure to tear its hand off, and if he seized one by the head he was sure to tear its head off. The other peasants, not being able to put up with such outrages, told Yvashka's father that he must either make his son mend his manners or not let him go out into the street to play with the children. The father for a long time endeavoured to reform Yvashka, but, perceiving that his son did not improve, he determined to turn him out of doors, and said to him:
"Depart from me, and go wheresoever you please. I will keep you no longer in my house,